Moving beyond immobility: Spatial stories of undergraduate mobility at the "local" college

In the English higher education context, "going to" university is commonly associated with leaving the familial home at the age of 18 and moving to a new city. This article sets out to problematise dominant narratives of student mobilities, by focusing on the everyday and imagined mobilities of students who stay in place for their degree education. On the basis of data from a case study of undergraduate education in further education colleges in England, the article sets out three challenges to the binary opposition between student mobilities and immobilities. First, the simple association between immobility, disadvantage, and deficit is challenged. The second challenge complicates perceptions of traditionally mobile undergraduates. Finally, the imagined "other lives" of local students challenge their characterisation as unable or unwilling to imagine student mobility. The article both highlights and seeks to resist powerful popular understandings of mobilities and undergraduate education.